In Their Meadow All Starry With Flowers
by Dalla
Summary: Nikola is unravelling, surrounded by myths and dreams, his mind is calling to some half hidden vision and Helen won't believe him. Rated M for later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer - Nothing is mine but the monsters I make up and the plot. Don't sue me corporate whores!

* * *

In their Meadow All Starry With Flowers

Chapter 1.

"You know what Nikola? I DON'T CARE!"

Helen bellowed, her face inches from an equally irate Tesla who was leaning over her desk, claws scraping grooves in the varnish, vampiric rage barely held in check.

"I don't care how many visions you've had, I don't care how much sleep you're losing, I don't even care that you have stormed into my office every day this week raving about torture and slavery. I am NOT authorising a mad hunt into Georgia to try to find your fantasy woman!"

Tesla practically roared in frustration,

"I'm telling you Helen, she's not just some fantasy, she's real! REAL! She calls to me, I can feel her in my head even now and it's driving me mad! I'm not just some crack-pot who hears voices, I'm telling you, there..."

"...'s a Siren being held captive in the Caucasus Mountains. Yes you've said that before and you still don't realise how insane it sounds." Helen cut him off, "How many times do I have to tell you? There. Is. No. Such. Thing. As. Sirens! They're a myth!"

"You work with BIGFOOT!" Screamed Tesla incredulously "You've got a mermaid in the basement, Jack the Ripper draining your brandy reserves and the wolfman is you head of IT! How hard is it to believe that there could be a species of abnormal that you've not come across?" He lurched away from the desk clutching at his hair as if he was about to tear it from his scalp. Normally he was obsessively neat but now in his rumpled shirtsleeves and cravat hanging limp and shredded from his collar he looked half mad.

"It's not Nikola! You know as well as I do that I'd love nothing more than for something like a Siren to be real, but there's simply no evidence. Apart from Homer's stories there's nothing, and how do you keep something as powerful and destructive as a Siren secret? There's not even any evidence of their island. You know you're talking nonsense."

Tesla whirled around, the hysteria in his face shocking Helen into taking a step back "The Rhinemaidens!" He spat back "Harpies, Kelpies, Nix, Pincoya, Melusine!"

Helen lowered her voice "All misreported sightings of Mer-people or bird-people. Nikola, please, stop this. You know it's a fantasy, it's all in your mind, if only you'd let me do a scan..."

"What so you can push and prod and quantify me? " He snarled, "Don't be ridiculous. I know what I see. Like I knew when I was a boy that I would harness Niagara, like I knew when my mother...I know, I just know."

"Ok, let's just imagine that for one second your, so called, visions are real." Helen's temper flared again, "What do you see? What evidence have you got? What facts? How do you know what she is? or even who she is? How do you know she's not being imprisoned because of her sheer destructive power? Where IS she Nikola? Come on, give me facts."

His face crumpled as he clutched at his head again, "I can't, I mean, I don't know. It's not like I've got a map. It's like a constant gnawing in my head and when I dream all I can see is her, and yet I don't see her, I see what her voice is and it makes my heart tremble and my blood feels like it's vibrating thought my veins. It's like something plucking on my soul. You don't understand Helen, I can't sleep, I can't concentrate, I can't work! I can't work, and I have to work." He sank into a chair, long fingers working at his temples, like he was trying to rub something away. Softening, Helen rose and crossing the room, knelt in front of him pulling his hands away from his face she gently said "Maybe you shouldn't be working, I think you're overstretched perhaps. You need to rest..."

"Rest?" He growled, his chin still to his chest. "Yes, rest would be good. But I need to work."

"No you don't," she whispered. In truth, Helen had been worrying about him recently, not just because he seemed to be slowly losing his grip on reality, but because since Ashley's disappearance he was becoming ever more obsessive about his work on localised radiation. Even she didn't know fully what he was doing in his lab, it seemed he was in there constantly, jealously guarding his secrets. He stalked between huge coils and magnets, everything lit with the stark blue light of his tame lightning. "You can't in this condition, you'll make yourself ill"

He let out a guttural chuckle, puzzled she pulled away, trying to see his face better. "Yes i do." He looked up, straight at her, his eyes massive black moons in his thin face, "Yes I do, because if I don't, all I can think about is how hungry I am."

Helen reeled away from him in horror, "Nikola! You've not, your medicine, please tell me you've not stopped taking your medication?" Her eyes searched his face, as he took deep breaths trying to force his vampiric self back within.

"No." He managed, his face less drained, his teeth less savage. His eyes were still black and bruised looking but there was a hint of the man underneath. "No, I still take it. I've been gorging myself all week, but I'm still starving. It's not that kind of hunger but it feels like it is, your pretty flesh is safe from me." He dropped his face into his hands again and moaned softly. Helen stayed quiet. She didn't know what to say, they'd never discussed the exact details of Nikola's diet. She trusted him completely when he said he was not feeding from humans, Nikola had never broken a promise in his life, which was probably why he made so few. She always made sure that there was animal blood available in the Sanctuary refrigerators and it always seemed to disappear. But she'd never asked him how, or when or how often. It somehow seemed too sensitive a subject, like she was deliberately pointing out the fact that he wasn't fully human any more.

She considered trying to comfort him, so obvious was his distress, but she knew from cruel experience that Nikola would scorn any platitudes and would in all likelihood take it as another example of her not taking him seriously, she decided to remain silent and let him talk to her if he could put into words what was quite obviously becoming some kind of breakdown. He was muttering to himself pressing hard on his eyes, his brow furrowed as she knelt there unable to help.

"Helen, I'm not going crazy." His whisper came from beneath his hands, "I'm not. Trust me, please. Please, like I trusted you in Oxford. I was the only one who would listen to you at the beginning. I was your only friend when everyone else shunned you. I believed you even when John would not listen to your theories on abnormals. Please...please... help me."

She could just see his exhausted grey eyes through his fingers, free from hysteria and the cold black that had consumed them just moments before. The uncharitable part of her, the part of her that suffered from every jibe Tesla threw at her, wanted to laugh. Wanted to make him suffer and beg for her help when he needed her like she knew he would have done. But the part that remembered her old friend. The young, fussy genius trying to look more mature with his thick moustache and faddy dress. The only man at Oxford who actually spoke to her about the lectures they attended. She had suspected at the time this was because he was incapable of talking about anything other than the subjects in which he excelled, but it had created a bond between them. A deep friendship where he had defended her against the mockery of her peers in lessons and outside the lecture hall, when at first even the Five had reacted with incredulity when she had put forward her research on abnormals. He hadn't cared how outlandish her claims were, he wanted to hear her ideas, Tesla always wanted to learn more as if he was in a consuming rush to find out everything the world hid from him. It was funny but she couldn't remember when he'd stopped being that excited young mind and became the snide cynic she knew now. Possibly the day she encouraged him to take part in her experiments. She owed him something for that she supposed, although the aggrieved pat of her felt that she'd already given enough to the ego-maniacal demands of the inventor. She put out her hand to his knee, "Nikola, I have been trying to help you. But you won't let me examine you, and without giving me any hard evidence that this woman is even real what am I supposed to do? I'm a scientist Nikola, you'd ask the same thing of me. We don't deal in dreams and visions, we need proof."

He leapt up, shoving her away, "What more can I give you?" he demanded, his voice cracked from the strain of holding in his despair. "I've told you everything I know, but I can't show you the inside of my head. I can't show you the visions that blind me to my work or the dreams that...oh." He broke off, his head cocked to one side like he was listening intently to something. "Oh, oh, oh by God, I am GOOD!" He leapt to his feet, grabbed her hand and yanked her to her feet. "Maybe I can!" he burst triumphantly, "Come along Doctor Magnus, we have work to do." and with that he dragged an astonished Helen behind him out of the door.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own anything apart from the monsters I make up and the plot. Don't sue me corporate whores!

*************

In Their Meadow All Starry With Flowers

Chapter 2.

Helen stumbled and skipped to keep up with Nikola's swift strides as he strode off down the corridoor, his grip was tight on her arm as he dragged her along in his wake. "Nikola! What are you doing? Let go of me!" She snapped as he darted suddenly into the lift, whose door nearly closed on her. Once inside he released her and leant against the wall grinning at her, his pointed eye teeth peaking over his bottom lip as he laughed at her astonishment.

"What are you playing at Nikola?" she demanded, irritated by this sudden change of situation, while hysterical sobbing Tesla was worrying enough, when he smiled like that you knew you were guaranteed trouble.

"I'm going to show you my dreams my darling Doctor Magnus. Well, that is if your pet is anywhere near as good as you think he is, I will" He laughed again and impetuously grabbed her and whirled her around, nimbly waltzing to the clunk-click of the descending lift as she tripped over her feet, clinging to his shoulders for balance.

"Oh you are going to understand Helen, finally, really understand. You'll finally get what you've always wanted and get to know what really is inside my head." he crooned in her ear,

"It'll be so exciting for you, just think of all those secrets you could worm out..."

The lift door whirred open again and once more he had her wrist and was dragging her down yet another corridoor. Helen realised they were heading for Will's office, what could Tesla, who had made his opinion of Will as little more than walking decoration perfectly clear, want with Will?

"Do keep up Helen, won't you?" Called Tesla airily, yanking her arm again as his long legs sped him onward. They reached the door at the end of the corridoor bearing the plaque "Zimmerman" which the Big Guy had just put up a few months ago as a little nod to Will's official standing at the Sanctuary. Nikola burst in without knocking and dragged Helen in behind him.

Will started up from his desk as his door was thrown open to reveal a frighteningly grinning Tesla and a struggling Magnus trotting in behind him.

"What the...? Magnus? What's going on?"

"Will!" Tesla greeted him jovially clapping him heartily on the shoulder with a force that made him stagger. This was enough in itself to put Will on edge if the current situation hadn't been odd enough.

"Seriously, Magnus, what's going on?" Will turned to Helen who was massaging her wrist and looking furious.

"I don't know, ask him!" She pointed at Tesla who was sneeringly examining Will's degree certificates and commendations on the wall. "He's the one that's gone stark raving mad, I have no idea what the lunatic wants!"

"Are these even from real universities?" queried Tesla who was holding Will's doctorate in his hand, examining the seal closely and pointedly ignoring Helen.

"Yes!" snapped Will, his normally low patience threshold for Tesla being severely pushed. "Now d'you want to tell me what's going on or shall I just guess?"

Tesla smirked at him "Well as amusing it would be to make the monkey guess what the grown ups are doing, I doubt you'd ever get the answer."

"Fine!" snarled Will, "Then if it's nothing important I don't have time for your games Tesla, unlike you, I have an actual job to do here." He gestured to his desk, currently covered with evaluations of all the new abnormals they had taken on while the Tokyo Sanctuary was still getting back on it's feet.

"Fine, ok, come on, let's do it!" Tesla looked at him brightly "C'mon, ply your cod-science trade and zap me. Put me under. Hypnotize me!"

"WHAT?" The shout came from both Will and Helen.

"You're not serious" Gasped Helen, "I knew it, you're playing some elaborate game and I'm not impressed."

"No. No really. I'm deadly serious." Tesla looked back at her, his smile fading. "Really I want to be hypnotized." He turned to Will "You've heard of automatic drawing, right? Where you can put me under and I can recall and draw all the memories my conscious mind is blocking?"

Will rolled his eyes, "Well yes, of course I have. It's effective for traumatised children and electively mute patients, but I doubt it'd work for you."

"Why ever not?" Tesla frowned at him. "Don't give me doubts, try!"

"Look, Tesla, as awesome as it would be to put you under and make you think you're a chicken, it wouldn't work. I'll tell you why it wouldn't work, because to be hypnotized the subject has to a) completely trust their hypnotist. b) be willing to be hypnotized and most importantly of all c) REALLY believe that they can be hypnotized. Somehow, I just don't think you're a suitable candidate." Will sat back down behind his desk. "I'm sorry, but whatever your problem is, you'll have to solve it without me."

Tesla strode over to the desk, his face grim and set,

"Listen to me you barely conscious psychologist QUACK. My mind is one of the most highly trained powers on the planet and it will do exactly what I want, so unless you want it to be trained upon making your every moment a living hell, you'll damn well hypnotized me. Got it, Blondie?"

"Nikola!" Interjected Helen who had been watching the exchange from the doorway, "This is madness and you know it is, please, just let me run some tests, we'll go over the results together and we'll find out what's making you sick..."

"I am not sick!" He rounded on her, "How many times must I tell you, there is someone or something trying to show me where this woman is and how we can save her..." He paused, suddenly shocked at his own voice. Save? That was all a bit...worthy. Disturbed by his own virtue, Nicola sat heavily on the armchair Will usually sat in when attending to patients.

"I just want to show you Helen, I can't prove anything to you unless you can see...like I can. I can't think of any other way." He turned to Will, and choking down his pride said "Please Will. If you try, I'll try and hopefully it'll work. Helen has questions I can't answer and this is the only way. Really."

Will understood desperation when he saw it. No matter what Magnus said about Tesla losing it, he knew that sometimes you had to disprove a patients fantasy on every single count before they could finally accept their illness themselves. Looking meaningfully at Helen he gently put his hand on Nikola's shoulder,

"If it's that important, I'll try. But you have to promise to follow my instructions exactly and don't be too disappointed if it doesn't work. Why don't you sit at the desk and we'll begin as soon as I set up the audio recorder"

Hope flickered back onto Nikola's face as he went and settled himself at Will's desk.

"no, not MY...oh well." Will sighed as he pulled up a spare chair for Magnus and sat himself on the other side of his desk facing the slightly scared looking vampire. He fussed briefly with a small digital dictaphone and placed a large pad of paper and pencils on the desk between them.

"Right, now I want you to take whichever pencil you prefer and hold it loosely on the paper with your arm and hand relaxed." Nikola obeyed and looked back expectantly. Will passed a notepad to Helen who duly began to record notes of the session. Will continued "Close your eyes, close them and listen to my voice..."

It was about an hour later when Henry and Bigfoot finally managed to pry Nikola's claws from the desk, and about another half an hour after that for the tranquilizers to kick in and for him to actually stop screaming.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I don't own anything other than the monsters I make up and the plot. Don't sue me corporate whores!

***********

In Their Meadow All Starry With Flowers

Chapter 3

She was cold. She was always cold, something to do with the drugs they gave her. Her mouth tasted of copper and rotting flesh, she needed to cough, slowly moving her head she hacked and spat out clots, her tongue explored the slime round her gums, at least she had all her teeth this time. Her cheek was pressed against wet planks, she was back on her island, the little six by six platform of planks that precariously perched on a column in the middle of the maelstrom that whirled round and round and round. Sometimes, when she was lucid, she wondered how they managed to make the whirlpool, but most of the time she didn't care. Like now, she didn't care, at least the drugs gave her that. Although, a frown crinkled her forehead, they were late with her dose, she could feel sensation slowly returning to her body. There was a dull throb coming from what she supposed was her hand, not that she could be sure, but it felt like it was her hand. Her eyes fluttered open and through the veil of her hair she could just focus on the offending hand by her face, long and flat on the boards, splashed by the frothing salt water. It was bloody and missing a fingernail, obviously she'd put up a fight this time, no matter how drugged she was they just didn't seem to be able to quash her instincts...maybe that was the point. Maybe it was more fun if she struggled, she didn't care, she just wished they'd keep up with her doses so she didn't have to look at her own battered limbs. The purple exposed nail bed sickened her, it looked like offal, jellied flesh pounded against bone. She didn't like to think about what the rest of her body looked like. Doubtless she'd heal soon enough, and then the cradle would descend from the circular window in the ceiling and she'd be taken away again. Part of her was pleased by the pain starting to reach her through the haze of opiates. It meant she'd made it difficult for them, she still had fight in her even after all this time, that she wasn't letting her sisters down even though they'd been dead for longer than her fragile memory could remember.

There was a clank as the grille over the window was pulled back and the specially soundproofed glass was drawn back, she couldn't see as lifting her head seemed like so much work, but she could smell the man looking down on her, she could hear his blood rushing and feel the vibration of his molecules in her chest. Instinctively she took a deep breath and hummed, a low soft sound, barely audible over the whirring of the motor that carried the little metal platform and him closer to her, she knew he could feel it, like a hook drawing him by the heart to her, dulled immensely by the ear protectors they all wore, to a faint longing. But he could still feel it, still know she was dangerous, that his life was hers to command. Except it was so much effort these days, and what was the point? She could barely move let alone escape, what would throwing one man to the sea achieve? He was shuffling his feet on the little hanging platform, none of them liked being this close to her when she was in-between shots, she pitched her hum closer to his own resonance but slightly off key, just because she knew it would make him sick, at least she could still do that. She listened, the faintest whisper of a smile on her face as he retched over the side of the rail before stepping onto her island, he stood over her with one boot either side of her body, ready to deliver a kick if she tried anything.

"Now stop that," he said shakily, rubbing his stomach where he could feel his diaphragm spasming, never more grateful for the covers on his ears. She knew they'd all been told the stories of what happened if the protectors weren't put on properly, or of the old days, when their grandfathers and great grandfathers had found the corpses of guards that had swallowed their own tongues or put out their own eyes, more disturbing were the ones that simply disappeared. Of the things she did just out spite because no matter who she lured into aiding her, there was no way for her to ever get away. He nudged her with his boot trying to get her to turn over but she just pressed her body harder against the planks beneath her relishing the feeling of the rough, wet and real planks beneath her digging into the bruises on her stomach. She concentrated on the salt spray misting the cuts on her back, and the deep spike of pain when she squeezed her thighs together, sensation seemed so important when she knew it was about to be taken away from her.

"Fine, have it your way" he said, stepping back he kicked her legs apart and jammed a needle into her inner thigh, swiftly and evenly pushing the plunger on the syringe and was whirring back up into the ceiling before she could even gasp. The liquid spread through her, cold and bringing a spreading numbness which she both feared and welcomed. She sighed, she thought she could feel the wind, she knew that this was a lie, she'd not felt the wind for a lifetime but as her body seemed to melt away from her she could swear she heard it rushing like breath. Eyes just slits, she stared out onto the wheeling water before her, watching her trailing hair fan out and stream like ribbons in the endless currents and let her mind spiral away into dreams.

Helen squinted in the low light as she carefully adjusted the dose of sedative in the drip plugged into the back of Nikola's hand. His eyelids twitched and he moaned constantly, sweat oiling his forehead as he fought against the drugs. It'd been a few hours now since his fit in Will's office and she'd not been able to quiet him once. Henry was watching over the bank of monitors that measured Nikola's breath, pulse, brain activity, organ function and for any signs of the vampire rising, although he had no real love for Nikola he was worried. They'd developed a kind of begrudging respect over the last few months, admittedly Henry felt the respect was all on his side, but as they worked together Nikola's derision seemed to have lessened, he even taught Henry sometimes when he forgot he was supposed to despise him. He looked over to the bed where Helen was stroking back Nikola's dark hair from his face, his face was grey and he looked like he was made of sticks under the sheets, he was so used to the energetic, self posessed man he worked with that the frail corpse creature shaking in a hospital bed seemed so alien.

"How's he doing Henry?" Helen's soft voice came from over his shoulder, she'd crept up on him,

"Well his body temperature is a little low even for him, but nothing too worrying but his heart is running like hell, and his brain monitor is lighting up like Christmas. Thing is, I don't know if it's s'posed to or not." He complained.

Helen sighed. "We'll work it out Henry, I'm just concerned with keeping him stable while Will and I work out what happened. I need to go see how he's getting on with the drawings Nikola managed before...well before this happened." She glanced over to the sweating man in the bed. "Watch over him for me".

"Will do." Henry tapped on his data-tablet as she left the room.

Huddled in the last safe corner of his mind Nikola looked out on the nightmares and screamed.


	4. Chapter 4

I own nothing other than the monsters I make up and the plot. Don't sue me corporate whores!

* * *

In Their Meadow All Starry With Flowers

Chapter 4

Will looked down at the papers spread out in front of him, and sighed. He'd arranged the drawings in chronological order so he could see the exact flow of the session, and to be honest the more he looked at them the more defeated he felt. There was no way the drawings in front of them had been done by a rational, normal mind, but then they were dealing with Nikola Tesla, normal and rational didn't apply here. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes,

"Just start again from the beginning, there's something you're missing here." He muttered. He picked the first few papers up, shuffled them into order and hit the "play" button on the Dictaphone he'd used to record the session.

There was a faint click and he heard his own low voice counting backwards from ten, then Tesla's withering comments and Helen's sharp admonishment. He heard himself sigh and comment that he thought the session was over and Tesla insisting that they try again to vociferous argument from both himself and Helen, then nothing but tortured, gurgling. He paused the tape at this point, mentally preparing himself, he could remember well enough the shocking change that came over his subject, and what came after. There had been a tiny frozen moment where he and Helen had both sat rooted to the spot as they registered that something dreadful was happening to the suddenly terrified Tesla. His eyes wide with shock Nikola appeared unable to move, his hand gripping the pencil so tightly that it splintered into shreds which stuck in his fingers as he struggled to breathe. Helen was the first to galvinize herself into action but it was no use, Nikola seemed to snap out of his paralysis, still unable to speak he grabbed for another pencil with his bleeding splintered hand,and began to sketch at lighting speed eyes tight shut. Will tried to bring him out of the trance, but no matter how loudly he counted or clapped he couldn't seem to get through, neither did Helen shouting his name or slapping his face, even her horrified begging, discretely erased from the Dictaphone by Will, fell on deaf ears.

He looked down at the sheaf of papers in his hands, and while trying to keep in mind all the sensory details of the room re-examined the shocking illustrations. They were bizarre half scenes, drawn as if seen through someone else's eyes but all the pictures were incomplete and it seemed, deliberately so. There was one of several laughing, jeering faces, all distorted beyond recognition, another of what appeared to be some kind of night club but as if through thick glass, another was a long thin hand, the fingers broken and twisted into odd angles. The most bizarre were the pages he'd filled with tiny figures of a girl floating as if held by strings over scribbled spirals. The girl was so clear and precisely drawn that Will could count her eyelashes but the scribble she was suspended over was often so violently drawn he'd torn the page. He was sure it was significant to the vampire's delusion, but as of yet, it's interpretation was impossible. His thoughts were interrupted by Helen poking her head round the door, coming in once she saw him look up,

"How is..." he began, but she cut him off with a wave of her hand.

"He's stable for now, Henry's watching him but I can't be away for long, the sedatives only seem to be lasting a fraction of the time they should, so we need to work quickly" Will said nothing about the fact that Henry was perfectly capable of administering sedatives on his own and looked back at his papers.

"I've been going over and over the drawings and to be perfectly honest, if he was a regular patient I'd be recommending immediate sectioning and a course of anti-psychotics. But," He sighed, "We're talking about an abnormal genius with, uh, eccentric tendencies. Who knows what the inside of his head is meant to look like?" Helen held up a couple of the later drawings, one of a bleeding mouth, it's lower lip torn to expose pulped gums and missing teeth, the other a ill-defined sketch of what appeared to be a struggling girl pinioned beneath several contorted men.

"Well, I'm fairly sure that it shouldn't look like this." She said, her face grim. "No matter how bizarre or full of underlying evil you think Nikola is, this is not a product of his own mind."

"What?" Will looked concerned, "I'm sorry Magnus, as you said yourself, he's deluded. He's creating these fantasies and projecting the torment they cause onto a malevolent outside figure to assuage the guilt he feels for having them in the first place. I'm sorry but, these" He fanned out the pages "are him, and he just doesn't want to face up to it. I need to be blunt about this, and I know it's not what you want to hear, but it's my opinion that he's going through a psychotic breakdown and it's only a matter of time before he hurts himself, or someone else." Helen's hands tightened on the pages she was holding, and said nothing. Will knew what was going through her mind, she was telling herself that she wasn't going to let Tesla slip away, not so soon after losing Ashley. It was only a few weeks since she had finally accepted that Ashley was never coming back and only Nikola hadn't flinched away when she'd been looking for someone to take the pain out on. John had simply vanished, looking for vengeance in his own, bloody way. Will, to his shame, had been so wrapped up in his own sorrow after the death of Clara during the fight for the London Sanctuary that he hadn't the strength to cope with the sheer scale of Magnus' grief. Henry had hidden away with the Big Guy and Kate had refused to engage. So she'd poured all her anger and hurt out on her old friend and for once he didn't try to make fun of her or offer solutions, he'd just pulled her to him and let her scream it out into his cold chest.

Helen looked down at the horror that had poured from Nikola's subconscious,

"Will, I know you're the person I can rely on to look at this dispassionately, I know you don't particularly care for Nikola," she waved away his interjection, "But thank you for giving me your advice. I don't expect you to count everyone here as a friend and the fact that you don't like Nikola is useful to us as you can keep us focused and impersonal. But, I am telling you this," she gestured at the papers on the desk, "This is not Nikola. If he'd drawn pictures of vampires crushing the human race or him ruling the world with an iron fist, then maybe I could believe it. You of all people know how out of control his ego is." Her mouth quirked into a small smile, "Believe me, if these had been the delusional fantasies of Nikola Tesla, they'd all be centred around him and I can't see a single reference to him anywhere in these. There's nothing we know he cares about, I mean, there's no reference to any of us, his own vampire race or his work. There's no drawing of himself, or even a single reference to electricity. Trust me, there is no way Nikola would leave himself out." Will took a deep breath, about to point out that Magnus had never studied the workings of the deranged mind like he had, but she spoke again before he could get his thoughts out.

"Will, what's this?" She'd picked up one of the sheets with the marionette like girl and scribble drawings.

"I'm not sure but he filled about four pages with it before his condition deteriorated. It seems to be integral to the delusions he's having" Helen stood up, holding the page close to her face,

"I know this" she murmured "I'm sure I've seen it before."

What? Where?" asked Will confused.

"I can't remember, but this picture, or a version of this picture. I've seen it, I knew it well, a long time ago. I just can't place where." She frowned. "I have to work on this, can you continue studying these and the audio? There may still be something significant" She turned on her heel and purposefully strode out.

"No, it's fine Magnus," Muttered Will exasperatedly, "It's fine, leave me to try to find sense in the freakish torture fantasies of a crazy vampire man that you, for no good reason, think is an ok guy regardless of the fact he's tried to kill you and unleash a pack of vampire clones on Rome. No really, it's fine!"

Henry tapped at his data tablet in the dim light of the hospital wing, Nikola had finally quieted down a few minutes ago and apart from a huge spike in endorphins just before calmed down he couldn't find any reason why. Especially as the sedatives Magnus had given him should have been wearing off rather than kicking in, but no matter what analysis algorithms he used, all the monitors told him that apart from being a little dehydrated, Nikola seemed to be sleeping comfortably. The door opened and Henry looked up expecting to see Magnus, but Kate stood in the doorway holding a cup of coffee.

"Big Guy thought you could use this, I brought it as I was passing." She put it down on top of the monitor bank and looked over at Nikola,

"So how's Chuckles? He doesn't look so bad, from the way everyone's been freaking out I was expecting at least a straight jacket or something." Henry rolled his eyes,

"Trust me, it was bad enough when we brought him in, I'd rather deal with sleeping Tesla than full on, whacked out, crazy Tesla"

What happened? I was over at the main lab giving Steve his crickets and by the time I got out, you and Magnus were in here strapping him down." She raised her eyebrows at him "Come on, spill, did he really try to eat Will's face right off?" Henry chuckled despite the situation,

"No, not quite. There was no face eating, just lots and lots of screaming. Magnus said they were doing some kind of hypnosis experiment because of Tesla being all twitchy this week and, well as you can see, it went very very wrong. When we got there he'd thrown Will into the wall, upturned the desk, pulled it into the corner of the room and was hiding behind it having a hysterical fit. We had to pull his claws a full inch out of the desk leg"

"I wondered what that was, he's been weirder than normal, I was having a snoop in his lab..."

"What? How? He's got it locked down" Interjected Henry incredulously,

"I have ways" she smiled, "Anyway, he's somehow made a whirlpool in a big glass vat and this thing that looks like an x-ray but if you turn it on it just makes this hideous noise. There's no doubt about it, Electro-vamp is definitely nuts."

"And is that your professional opinion?" Came a groggy voice from the other side of the monitor bank. Grey and shaking Nikola held on to the table for support. They'd been so engrossed in their conversation that neither of them had noticed him struggle out of bed.

"Obviously I need to up my security." He continued, "As you seem incapable of respecting people''s privacy Miss Freelander" He looked down at the sensor patches on his bare chest "Henry, what happened to me?" he whispered as his legs buckled beneath him.


	5. Chapter 5

In Their Meadow All Starry With Flowers

Chapter 5

She lay on her island, water spiralling beneath her and dreams unfurling above her mind drifting through delicately fashioned memories she wasn't even sure were hers. She was only vaguely away of a pair of hands turning her over, feeling her limbs for breaks, they pried open her mouth and checked her teeth and tongue, she moaned softly as they shone a light in her eyes and louder as they spread her legs. She was no use to them if she was damaged, it was lucky for them her kind healed so quickly, they didn't have to waste expensive medical treatment on her. Satisfied he jammed another needle in her arm and left her to savour the creeping sleep that stole over her.

She walked naked in torrential rain through an unfamiliar town, a place of great golden stone halls and rolling lawns. The further she walked the surroundings became more lived in, a scattering of bicycles hastily lent against walls and untidy black clad young men dashing into doorways down dark corridors half lit by the twilight. She walked on, drawn to what looked like a large ramshackle out building that already had bright lights blazing from the windows and a young woman with blonde curls knocking on the door. It appeared there was no one in, and she stood nearby watching the blonde girl cast about her for somewhere to shelter from the downpour, her hair already plastered to her head and her blue dress dark and heavy with water. She considered running to the large entrance porch of the grand building over the lawn, but she wouldn't be able to see the door from there. Making do with huddling under the door lintel the girl waited, several minutes later an equally sopping man appeared from a path hazy with rain. He smiled at her, and waved, seemingly completely unconcerned that they were both drenched.

"Nikola!" The girl called sharply, "We were supposed to meet at seven!" He grinned puckishly and jogged the last few meters to reach her,

"Indeed my dear Miss Magnus, we did arrange to meet at seven, and it is now quarter to eight. You were late!" His voice was warm, and softly accented, intriguingly eastern European.

"So were you!" She laughed up at him,

"Nonsense! I was here at the allotted time, but alas, my lady spurned me..." He winked and made a little bow in her direction, "So I went out to get a vital piece of equipment for our experiment tonight. Shall we?" He gestured to the over sized shed.

"Yes!" She laughed again, playfully shoving him to the door, "I'm soaked to the skin."

"Oh my poor dampened darling!" He teased her, pretending to look for the right key from the fob on his waistcoat, "We'll just have to get you out of those wet clothes, your father would never forgive me if you caught a chill. Aha!" He flourished the key, laughing at her pretence of insulted honour. Still laughing he opened the door and his face was lit with the warm glow from inside, which made them suddenly appear to be touched with sunlight. He stepped back and ushered her in, taking one last look outside he squinted into the middle distance frowning,

"What is it?" the girl asked,

"Nothing, I thought for a second there was...no, It's nothing. Just the rain playing tricks on me"

They went inside, and she was once again alone in the rain. Curious about the merry young man and the girl who stood in the rain for him she drew closer and pressed her face to the window.

The other side of the world and a lifetime away Nikola Tesla felt a soft drifting heaviness through his bones. Henry's face swam before him as his eyes refused to focus, he slid to the ground, in a tangle of wires dragging the monitors with him and allowed himself to slip into sleep, enjoying the fizz and tickle of the mains current running through him. Tesla drifted, unconscious through the panic around him, insensible of Henry's cursing as live wires snapped and flashed, of his bellows for Kate to get Magnus, or of the Sanctuary going dark as the fuses overloaded throughout the building. Oblivious and serene his mind slipped away to a place long ago where he'd been happy. Oxford. All through his early school career he'd maintained he would attend the famous university, not content to follow his father into ministry. He'd taught himself near fluent English while acing the facile tests of academia that tried to keep him away from his goal and finally he was there. He was notorious for his ludicrous theories that flew in the face of all science stood for at the time, and had been ejected from so many lectures for contradicting his professors that his non-attendance was legendary. Most of his fellow scholars, all sons of rich men, thought him an odd little pastor's son trying to fit in with his cocky walk and Saville Row suits that he couldn't afford and avoided him. None of that mattered to Tesla, here he could give free reign to his imagination and although his dangerous and often explosive experiments led to several fines and letters to his father, his professors recognised something within him, the beginnings of genius. Someone else had noticed as well, he'd been shocked and then encouraged to see a woman in his lectures, to him this proved he was where he needed to be, where he could be part of the future. He'd been surprised when she approached him after a lesson one evening, it wasn't as if pretty women had never approached him before but his breath caught as she walked over, he'd never met anyone so self possessed. She didn't try to flatter him or make any allusions to fashionable coyness, she looked him boldly in face and questioned a theory he posited in class. It never once occurred to him to brush her off, or dumb down his ideas, he reasoned if she could follow what he'd said in class, and question it, then for all her female sensibilities she deserved to be there. They'd stood in that hallway arguing physics for the best part of an hour until the tutor in the next room shooed them away for disturbing his lesson. He'd offered his arm and they walked out together, drawing looks form other scholars loitering in the halls. He knew they were wondering how batty Tesla had managed to charm the fierce Helen Magnus, daughter of one of the most respected physicians of the time and Oxford's first unofficial female Rogue Scholar.

Nikola smiled in his electric sleep and dreamt of the one shining moment in his life that he kept safe to light only the darkest of his nights.

They were golden in the lamplight, Helen's blue silks were jewel dark from the rain and he was young. Ostensibly he hadn't aged more than fifteen or so years since his time at university but he felt so old compared to the young man in his dreams who could only think of the glittering future of mankind. Nikola lost himself in his past, feeling his old spirit slipping back into his young mind and revelling in the continual burning ideas that seemed to race through his blood.

"I'm sorry I haven't a fire for you to dry off by" He said ushering Helen towards the charcoal brazier in the centre of the makeshift workshop, "But this place was a little hard to fit with the luxury to which you've become accustomed."

"Luxury!" she laughed, "I'm not the one out in the rain in a silk suit Mr Tesla!" He grinned ruefully as he shrugged off his waterlogged jacket.

"Don't change the subject Miss Magnus, is it not true that you have lately been seen much in the company of a rich country squire's son, the honourable James Watson? And that he is much in the habit of buying expensive trinkets for his favourite ladies?" Tesla cocked a mischievous eyebrow at her. "Should I be jealous? Or is this your way of telling me to buy you pearl earrings?"

"They used to burn men like you Nikola!" She exclaimed as she tried to dry off her skirts in front of the burner, "How did you know?"

"I know everything, I'm a genius remember?" He caught her hands as she mock-slapped at him "And dear Jimmy tried to rub it in my face that you'd had dinner with him." He looked down at her as she frowned, "But," he whispered, pulling her to him "What Jimmy doesn't realise is that the lovely Miss Magnus isn't like other girls, to her pearls are mere balls of calcite and fancy dinners are an unwelcome distraction from her one true love"

"And what is that?" She breathed as they moved closer, he still held her wrists as she boldly placed her hands on his chest, he felt cool under the soaked shirt he was still wearing but she could feel his heartbeat thudding through the wet linen. "Tell me Niko, what do I truly love?"

"Well, me." He grinned cheekily and twirled her round, "And I suppose scientific exploration might come a close second." She laughed as he whirled her round her wet skirts slapping against her legs. They came to a stop back by the brazier, and Tesla regarded the bright spots of pink on her cheeks critically,

"Really Helen, I was serious earlier, your father will never let you see me again if you take a fever all because you were foolish enough to wait out in the rain for me."

"Foolish? You were the one who locked the door!" He waved away her indignation as he rummaged through a narrow cupboard by the side of a low camp bed in the corner of the ramshackle space and produced a mangy looking towel, a rather scorched looking shirt and a pair of baggy looking trousers.

"Not my finest I'm afraid, but they'll do while your dress dries off." He held out the shabby articles frowning at her skeptical look, "They're quite clean, now they'll be a bit big but I'm not letting you sit here in wet clothes"

"You won't LET me? Who do you think you are? My father?" Her famous feminist temper rising at the perceived patronising implications. Nikola rolled his eyes,

"I know it's hard for you, but please try to use logic for a minute. If you sit here in wet clothes, you will undoubtedly catch a chill and if you do, 1) your father will blame me and forbid what he already sees as a completely unsuitable friendship, which means you will be inevitably forced to resort to lies and subterfuge to come see me, yes Helen, I am that irresistible, scoff all you like but you know I'm right. And therefore you will irrevocably destroy your relationship with your dear papa, be cast out of the family home and I'll be forced to take you in lest you run to depravity and I really don't have the means to support you...Maybe Jimmy will?." He raised his eyebrows at her in mock astonishment as she laughed,

"And 2) If you do not get changed into dry clothes right now I am going to put you in a carriage home and keep my experiments all to myself!"

"YOUR experiments?!" She burst, "Pardon me Mr Tesla, but who is it that did all the calculations for you on this project?"

"You did, my scintillating inventress, and I came up with the concept, the physics and the actual crafting of the final components and build, so let's not quibble. I'm talking practicalities, for a start, the longer it takes you to get changed, the longer you'll hog the brazier and the longer I have to stand about in wet clothes. Oh, how I curse my gallantry!" He'd never have told her that he'd done the mathematics for the motor they were working, and several permutations of it in his head, she'd never forgive him, especially not since she'd worked so hard. He could see her desire to tear strips off him for presuming that he had any power to control her actions and her desire to know if their new miniaturised electric motor really worked battling in her mind. In the end, as ever with Helen, her curiosity won, she snatched the clothes from his hands,

"Fine. I'll change into your blasted rags but you have to wait outside while I do."

"Outside? But it's pouring and I'm already soaked through!"

"Well it won't make any difference then, will it?" she responded tartly as she pulled off her jacket in a business like manner,

"I could always keep my eyes averted to the wall, you may need me on hand to help with any difficult buttons or laces..." He countered.

"Nikola, i do believe you are the most impossible person I've ever had the ill fortune to meet. Now stop your leering and get out! OUT!" She pushed him to the door and more or less flung him out into the deluge.

"Impossible and BRILLIANT" he shot back, but the door had already slammed and he was alone. He felt in his pocket and pulled out a cigarette case and huddled under the eaves of the building to light one, as he shook out the match an unfamiliar noise made him start. It was a heavy sigh, infinitely sad and definitely out of place here. keeping under the eaves as much as possible, Nikola stalked round the side of the shed, the smoke in his lungs froze as he saw what was standing by his window. There was a girl, tall and thin, naked in the rain. Her hair was flat black and it clung to her white body in fat strands like leeches and she flickered in the dark like she was made of candlelight. She'd been gazing longingly into the window, watching them all this time.

"What the..." he breathed, she turned to him, her face lit by the lamplight from the window, it's beauty and melancholy were breathtaking and savage.

"You see me." She said, her voice barely above a whisper, but carrying clearly to where he stood transfixed.

"Yes..." he managed, "But I don't understand how, are you a ghost?" His rational brain knew this was nonsense but he could think of no other explanation. She moved towards him and placed a cold hand on his face, suddenly she was so real and solid he reeled away from her in fear.

"How is this possible? Who are you? This isn't how it happens..."

"But it is." She stated simply, "Look you, Nikola Tesla, look in your window." He staggered to the window and squashed his nose against the glass and to his amazement saw himself and Helen resuming their endless flirtation. He stared at them hungrily,

"Why do you come here?" She asked, Nikola had no reason to answer this strange woman invading his dreams but something in her voice drew his secret longing from his chest,

"Because it's the last night we had together, where we were perfect and brilliant and I could pretend that she was mine" He watched as they two figures inside sparred and danced round one another as they fixed wires copper rods in place, "We were little more than children in our own little world full of lightning and gold, we felt like nothing could touch us, and then the next day she met John. This was the last moment of both our lives that we were innocent of the darkness in the world." He let his tears of regret mingle with the rain, as the workshop was engulfed with sparks and then a strong whirring noise began, soon to be drowned out by their shouts of triumph and as Helen threw her arms around the neck of young Tesla, he bent his head, and softly kissed her.

Outside Nikola looked away, hot tears burning his face.

"Is...Is it going to be like this forever now?" He asked,

"No, it's your memory, I just got lost here." The pale girl replied, her eyes lowered to her filthy feet "I don't have any of my own, you see."

"You're her aren't you?" He turned to her holding out his hands "You're the one calling to me, aren't you? Why? Why me? Why now?" She looked away, into the rain, considering,

"Yes. I think so."

"You think so? You mean you're running amok in my head and you don't realise you're doing it?"

"No. My body is a prisoner somewhere, I've been there for so long I can't remember the feel of the sun on my face. They give me...something, and all I know is pain and dreams."

"Why me?" He demanded, anger rising within his stomach, "Why now? What on earth do you expect me to do when I can barely even control my own body any more?"

"I don't know. I just wait for the shots, so I can fly away. I never used to be able to, I think it's their way of keeping me quiet, if I can dream, I don't sing." She moved closer to him, and put her hand over his heart, he could feel the cold seeping into his flesh, but didn't pull away as she closed her eyes and hummed softly under her breath,

"It's your soul." She gasped, her eyes snapping open and staring into his, wide and excited, "Your soul sounds like mine."

In the midst of showers of sparks and humming current Nikola Tesla awoke. Awoke with a purpose.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N - I'm so sorry for the long absence and lack of updates. I'm afraid life just gets in the way sometimes, and I've been struggling with exactly which way to take this...It could get very dark and twisty before the end! But yes, I'm also afraid this is only a quick update, but I promise I'll try to resume regular updates this week and maybe a cheeky Christmas bonus! ;)

Thanks for your patience and support, hope you're all enjoying the holidays!

D

x

*****************

In Their Meadow All Starry With Flowers

Chapter 6

Up, near the top of the building, Helen brooded in her office. She knew she should have gone to the hospital wing to check on their patient, but there was something too familiar about the page of scribbles in front of her to ignore. She was certain she'd seen the drawing before, not just seen it, known it intimately and it's presence worried her. Although her scientific brain told her it was just a fancy, she couldn't help feel that it was a thing of malignant power, the paper felt heavy in her hands like it was weighted with foreboding. The beep of her computer jolted her out of her reverie as it let her know that her image search had completed. Henry had created the nifty little piece of software, similar to other image reconition programmes but with the added bonus of collating, and comparing all abnormal references pertaining to the image. She hopefully clicked open the programme window. Nothing. But something in Henry's clever "Holy crap! This isn't what you're looking for but it's close enough", column caught her eye, a painting by the Swedish artist Knut Ekwall, "The fisherman and the Siren", the siren arched back over a whirlpool reaching supplicant arms out to the ensnared fisherman, ready to drown him. She held up her page of scribbles to the screen and considered. It was alarmingly similar, but it didn't jog her memory. Cursing her abnormally long life and the toll it took on her earliest memories she slumped back in her chair. Not for the first time she wished James was still alive, or even that she had some way of contacting John, someone as permanent as she who remembered the old days.

Will's knock and head poking round her door snapped her out of her thoughts,

"What? What's happened?" she asked urgently.

"Nothing, nothing as far as I know." He quickly replied, "Henry checked in just before I came up here, he said," Will made finger quotes in the air, "He's out like a virgin at a kegger and he's resisting the urge to draw on his face"

Helen smiled, "Oh Henry..." she trailed off her face fading as she thought of how thin and frail Nikola had been in the big hospital bed. It amazed her how many of her memories of Tesla were inextricably linked to beds. Not in that way, in truth she and Nikola had never gone the distance, but they'd spent many nights curled round each other on his squeaky narrow bed in his dilapidated workshop/lab at Oxford. They used to talk long into the night while the lamps burned low, their habitual position of his head on her shoulder, face in her hair and her leg slung over his hip, pulling him as close as possible. She knew the first time they'd lain down together he'd secretly been shocked and thrilled at her closeness and her heart had banged against her ribs as she wondered if this was what it meant to be wanton. She'd felt his hands shake as he brushed back her hair, looking up at her his eyes in that wide searching stare and she'd thrown her caution away and rolled into his embrace. She remembered one night where they'd been face to face their noses almost touching and she breathed him in as he chattered in whispers about his plans for the bright future of mankind, his words flowed into her making her feel dizzy with his passion and she'd reached up her hand to his lips, and brought him crashing into the present with a kiss. She remembered how he could sleep anywhere, flat out on his workbench or once draped in a back breaking arc over her travelling chest the night he tried to persuade her not to leave him for a much needed holiday. She remembered his body making the same shape as he arched in agony, strapped to John's four poster as his DNA re-wrote itself.

"Hello? Hellllooo?" Will was snapping his fingers in front of her face, "Magnus?"

"Yes, what?" She snapped, waving his hands away from her.

"Woah, kinda zoned out there huh?" He raised his eyebrows at her questioningly, "Anything you want to share?"

"No!" He looked taken aback at the force of her reply, but said nothing, "Look, I'm sorry Will, but there are and always will be things I don't want to share with you. Not because I don't trust you or don't think you'll be able to help but because they're my things. Do you understand? If i share them, then they'll stop being just mine. Some things I need to have for myself."

Will stood up, and nodded a little sadly,

"I get it. You think I don't, but I do. You think I don't know why you keep Tesla around regardless of what he does or how he hurts you, but I do. He used to be something else to you didn't he? Something better and greater than the thing he is now, and you sometimes see flashes of that man which just fuels your need to protect the memories you have of when he was different. Your head is where you keep him safe, you closet away all that emotion and the person he once was to protect it from who he is now. Which is why you keep him at arms length even though you both were once so obviously close, you push him away so he doesn't taint it. Well you're only going to end up hurting more the more he turns away from his old self. He'll let you down and betray your memories time and again because he's not that man, hell he's not even human anymore..." He broke off as Helen's head snapped up, her eyes full of tears.

"God, Will," She said, her voice small and husky, "You really don't know when to shut up do you?"  
"Magnus, I'm sorry but you have to..."

"Get out."

"Please listen to me, he's having a breakdo..."

"GET. OUT."

"You don't want to listen to me, fine. But remember, this is what you asked me to do, to be my objective psychologist self. But," He tossed some sheets of paper down on her desk, "If you won't listen to me, at least have a look at what other psychologists say. I took the liberty of calling a few old colleagues and getting their opinions, some were kind enough to email me some suggestions. And I'm afraid nearly all of them point to Tesla finally losing his marbles. I'm so sorry Magnus, but you can't deny the evidence, you know that."

Magnus bowed her head and waited for him to leave. She knew he must be worried to have lectured her like that, but her insides still boiled at his remarks. How dare he? How dare he lecture her on the evidence? She was looking for evidence that he couldn't even fathom existed. Evidence that in her heart of hearts she felt would somehow condemn Nikola further. She hated Will. She hated his insight, and his tenacity right now, she wanted to scream and rage against the probable madness that was taking the last shreds of her Niko away, but it was as if her body was functioning by itself. She watched her trembling fingers reach for the papers and her eyes began to read to cool, logical damnation of her old friend.


	7. Chapter 7

In Their Meadow all Starry With Flowers

Chapter 7

"Psychotic break,"

"Immediate isolation,"

"Cetainly dangerous"

Helen let the words sink in. Had she been wrong? Was it possible that she had wanted Nikola's insane scribbling to be "a clue" to something bigger, outside of him, something she could solve and control instead of facing up to the fact that it could be the tragic product of his genius finally imploding on itself? She had never been like Nikola, she hadn't got to where she was as a scientist by sheer brilliance and pig headed self belief, she had always believed in the power of outside observation. It was why she surrounded herself with people like Will and Henry, so why now did everything in her absolutely reject the findings of Will's colleagues. They were the brightest minds in their field, naturally they had no idea who the patient was that he was consulting with them about but even so, rationally she knew she should give them a chance. Even though his body seemed to brush aside any illnesses and infections, who knew what his brain would withstand, and she thought sadly, Nikola had never been entirely stable before he'd changed. She was interrupted by Kate flying in the door of her office, a panic stricken look on her face,

"Magnus! You gotta come now, Tesla's gone and..."

A loud crack drowned out the end of her sentence and sparks flew from the light fittings as all the bulbs exploded. The screen on Magnus' computer was flickering wildly and she had to shout over the loud whining hum that was rising through the building,

"Kate, what one earth is going on? What's happened?"

Kate grabbed her arm and started pulling her down the corridoor,

"Tesla woke up, then he passed out again, I don't know, but he's managed to take out all the electrics."

She yelled as the whine grew louder and they had to skip past flashing wires that were working themselves free of the walls as Tesla's monumental charge ran through them,

"But why? Why would he do that?" Magnus shouted back,

"He's not doing it on purpose! He's doing this in his sleep for Christ's sake!"

"His sleep?!"

"Yeah, now stop asking questions and run...I think we're going to have to take the stairs." Kate dragged Magnus past the big iron lift which was doing it's best to break free from it's own cables and crashed them through the stairwell door as the lights finally went out. Down they raced, taking the stairs three at a time, as the emergency generators struggled to cope with the power surge.

Moments later they hurtled into the lab only to be beaten back by the flames of the electrical fire that Henry was desperately trying to put out amidst his computer banks.

"Henry? Henry, are you all right? What's happening?" Magnus called to him as she edged round the flames trying to get to the second fire extinguisher on the other side of the room.

"I'm ok Doc, just a little crispy!" He leapt back as a monitor exploded sending hot plastic shards whizzing past him

"Crap in a bag! Anything you can do to shut him off? This is getting less fun by the second!" He pointed at Tesla in the midst of the flames, radiant with current and faintly smiling in his crumpled heap on the floor. Magnus ripped the extinguisher off the wall and began spraying the powder over the flames nearest her, Kate appeared again in the doorway and began helping Henry by smothering the smaller flames with a fire blanket from the hall. Their three pronged approach seemed to be working as they steadily worked closer in to the source of the fire, Nikola. Who without warning, sat bolt upright amidst the flames.

"NIKOLA!" Helen shouted, "Turn it off, stop the current!" He turned, looking at them blankly, his eyes lit with the blue glow of the electricity coursing through him.

"Helen?" He peered through the smoke and sparks,

"Nikola! The current!"

"What? Oh. Yes." He had a vague, dreamy look on his face, but as suddenly as it had happened the electricity he was channelling through the room stopped. The whole place went dark, the only light now coming from the small fires in Henry's monitor bank, the only noise the far off whine of the emergency generators as a dim orange light feebly glowed through the fumes. Magnus slumped against the wall,

"Thank God"

Nikola pulled himself up on the smoking remains of his bed, his flesh charred on the hot metal as he leant against the headboard, he blew on his hands as they healed before their eyes.

"Now," He began, his voice still a little distant, "Who wants to tell me exactly what is going on here?" He raised an eyebrow at them "I'm looking at you Doctor Magnus, I let your pet Ken doll make me all sleepy and I wake up half naked in a fire with a hysterical nerdwolf crying because his little blippy things went boom"

"Hey! I am not crying!" Henry said angrily, "I've been fighting a fire, it's the smoke!"

Helen furiously looked round her destroyed infirmary, at the smouldering equipment, the charred walls and the tarry liquefying remains of the mattress drooling onto the floor under the bed Nikola nonchelantly leant against and willed herself not to scream at him, the final straw was when he continued, looking narrowly at the pool of melted mattress slowly inching its way towards his bare foot,

"Also, you might want to get some mattresses that weren't salvaged WWII surplus, I always said you were cheap Helen..."

"Enough!" She exploded, "Nikola, will you STOP for just one second or I will knock you out again, and this time I won't need drugs. Have you looked at this place? My infirmary is ruined, valuable and difficult to replace equipment has been destroyed, Will has been thrown into a wall, and our lives were put in danger, all because of you, you and your ridiculous refusal to seek treatment for what is probably a dangerous mental illness, Will was probably right, maybe we should lock you up and force bloody tranquilizers down your throat before you lose what few wits you have left and go feral on us..." She caught herself as the others gaped at her.

"Mental illness." Nikola hissed through the drifting smoke, "Is that what you and your pet have decided? That I'm insane? He, I could have guessed, wouldn't have had the cognitive abilities to look past his monkey training but you Helen? Of you I expected a little better"

Kate grabbed Henry who was open mouthed and spoke quietly in his ear

"I think we better let mom and pop duke this one out on their own don't you?" They quickly scurried for the door as Helen moved towards the scowling vampire.

"Nikola, I didn't mean that, you know I didn't and I'm sorry. I'm worried about your health and things would be so much easier if you could stop your sneering flippancy for just a few minutes. The fact you can't remember why you're here is significant as people experiencing nervous breakdowns often have blackouts." She recalled with mild horror that those going through psychotic breaks from reality also suffered blackouts and the fact that Nikola was so much more dangerous than any of the other abnormals she allowed to walk free in the Sanctuary came crashing into the forefront of her mind.

"Breakdowns?!" He practically snarled at her, staggering away from the wall his eyes dark, "Blackouts? The only reason I blacked out my dear Helen is because your quack of a psychologist hypnotized me and obviously did it wrong." His steps were shaky but there was no mistaking the menace in his voice, "And if I ever find out that he's damaged me in some way, I will make him scream like the little girl he is before I snap his neck." His face was drawn, his bruised looking eyes hellish in the half light as his anger forced his vampiric side into the open and in that instant Helen realised that he wasn't just angry, he was terrified. All Nikola had ever had was his genius. His family had never been rich, or influential, he'd never had anything to make him special other than his brain and unfailing ambition. The fact that she, of all people, was losing faith in the stability of his mind must have cut him to the core.

Nikola inwardly choked down his fury and with as much dignity as he could muster in just a pair of pyjama bottoms that had become rather revealing in the fire and with legs that felt like jelly attempted to brush past Helen as she stood between him and the door with a slightly ashamed flush spreading over her cheeks. But as he made to step forward he lurched into her, his anger no longer enough to keep him upright. She grabbed him round the middle to steady him even as he tried to shove her away,

"Get off me woman, I can make it to the door without your pity" He growled and tired to extricate himself from her grasp, but his usually preternaturally strong limbs failed him, he felt bizarrely disconnected from himself, like he was trying to control his body from another room by remote control.

"Oh yes, you seem more than capable." Said Helen sarcastically as his hands trembled on her wrists, she was determined not to show her concern even though her heart was sinking at the feeble limp fingers clutching at her, where only hours ago his long hands had held her immobile.

"Helen, don't condescend to me, I'm not a truculent child and I'm not going insane. Now let me go, I just want to go to bed." His eyes were back to their usual washed grey, and achingly tired as he looked at her, his face close to hers as he leant heavily on her. She sighed.

"Fine, you're perfectly sane. You're right, I'm wrong. Now please can we have a truce til I can help you to your room because I'm about to collapse under you."  
"Wouldn't be the first time..."

She looked sharply at him, it was so unexpected that she was slightly relieved under the instinctive annoyance to see a glimmer of the real Nikola in his eyes. She nudged him in the ribs and he winced.

"I can just as easily leave you here you know." She chided as she pulled him, wobbly legged down the corridor.

"Oh but Helen, we both know that won't happen, not when there's the chance for you to take me to bed." His eye teeth glinted as he smirked, looking down at his sooty, mostly naked body, his modesty only protected by the pyjamas that had more or less singed off into a holey pair of shorts.

"And if you'd wanted to get me into something less substantial than my usual attire you only had to ask...oof!" She had poked him in the ribs this time.

"Stop it Niko." His old nickname just slipped out and she just hoped he hadn't noticed, "Behave yourself or I'm getting the Big Guy to put you to bed." She risked a glance up at him as she pulled his arm tighter around her neck to steady him as she opened his bedroom door ushered him in, and kicked it shut behind her. He was looking at the floor in front of them, his face soft and a faint smile on his lips but he said nothing, as she sat him on the edge of his bed and fussed around him looking for a fresh set of pyjamas. Where had that "Niko" come from she wondered. He'd not been Niko to her since they'd fallen out over John. She still couldn't think about that argument without cold shame running down her spine. She'd known all along that he'd been in love with her, and she'd used that against him, called him jealous and controlling, an untrue friend. She'd even mocked him for it, told him he was pathetic for running after her and hoping that she might love him in return. She'd crushed him all because he'd been suspicious of John joining their circle. He'd not been a scientist, he'd been a philosophy student, a discipline Nikola held in deep suspicion as being little better than theologists. In return Nikola had used her gender against her, belittling her, accusing her of using her femininity to poach from greater minds than her own. He'd hit her where it hurt and she'd sworn never to forgive him. Yet still neither of them had stopped attending the meetings of The Five, it was almost as if they both knew, despite their frosty formalities, that they had not meant the dreadful things they had said. In the end, it had been his hand she reached for when the pain of transformation hit.

"Here, put these on" Helen handed him a pair of black pyjamas, her hands and voice brisk to cover up her sentimental slip. He looked up from his gently smiling reverie, his eyes in the wide searching gaze she remembered from their youth. He looked at her as if trying to see through her into her mind and she felt his slim fingers reaching for her, the tips just brushing her hand. He hauled himself upright on one of the posts on his bed and stood in front of her for a long moment without moving, until he broke his gaze and took the clothes from her. Neither of them moved away from one another, Helen's heart was beating hard to the point where she knew he could hear it. Her thoughts were racing, and she couldn't tell whether her resurgence of affection and embarrassingly, desire for this man was arising simply because of her fear that she might finally lose the last constant in her life or because now after John's final abandonment of her she could let herself feel for Nikola again, or even more embarrassingly did she just want to give in to her need for comfort during her time of hardship?

"Helen," he said gently as she realised she'd been staring blankly at his chest, "Unless you want to see more than I think you're ready for, would you mind turning around?" She spun on her heel, glowing red in the face as it struck her that she'd never actually seen Nikola so undressed as she was now. It also struck her how inappropriate these thoughts were when he was her sick, possibly losing his mind and about to drop from exhaustion. She tried to breathe deeply yet unobtrusively as she listened to him struggling to change while holding on to the bed post for balance.

"Well, you can turn round now, I think I'm as presentable as I'm going to get."

Helen turned and stifled a smile, his T-shirt was back to front and twisted on his shoulders where he'd tried and failed to turn it round and the trousers were just hanging on his hips as he'd managed to somehow pull the drawstring half into the waistband.

"Oh Helen, don't fuss!" He protested as she chucklingly tugged the T-shirt back up over his head and he wobbled on his feet with the vigour of her movements. She also noticed that he didn't try to stop her redressing him. Her hands brushed his cool skin as she pulled the shirt back on,

"Now do you want me to fix these?" She looked up at him coyly as her hands went to the waistband of his trousers and as the familiar leer spread over his face she laughed and prodded him hard in the chest, toppling him over onto the bed.

"Hey! That's called abusing your patient!"

"Are you casting aspersions on my bedside manner?" She picked up a cushion and hefted it menacingly, with a proper smile on his drained face he shrank away from her in mock fear,

"Ok, ok! Truce! Your bedside manner is delightful" He muttered "Delightfully distressing..." the puckish grin on his face hadn't changed over the long years and Helen felt herself grinning back. How was it, even after decades apart, and the animosity between them only minutes ago, their flirtatious sparring could just carry on as normal, like they were both twenty again. She rolled her eyes,

"Dreadful, you're dreadful, now get into bed properly, you need to rest." She pushed him back on his pillows and started to draw the sheets up over him. It wasn't until she felt his hand on her arm that she paused, noticing his face was suddenly serious.

"Stay." He said in a small voice. It had always been this way, she would make to leave after their evenings together and sometimes his pride would make him wait until she was putting her bonnet on and actually walking through the door before he would call after her. She never asked him why he started asking her, or why he shook and sobbed in his sleep, but it was her body pressed to his that soothed him and for a while, he had looked less drawn and pale. She didn't ask him why he needed her this time either. He watched her as she sat on the edge of his bed and performed a ritual they both knew from a lifetime ago. She removed her jacket, unlaced and slipped off her boots, took the pins out of her hair and let it snake down her back in it's long waves and slid under the covers, her body cradling his for a few moments until they rolled into that familiar position, what she thought of as "their sleep". She breathed in rhythm with him as her memories came flooding back, his long frame half draped over her, his leg stretched out between hers, hers twined round his hip, the warmth that spread through her as he moved against her. She remembered the first time she'd felt the weight of him, his thigh parting hers, the pressure of his hip against her, the roll of his ribcage as they breathed together, his cool fingers in the crease of her neck and how she'd wondered what it would feel like to be his lover, it was all exactly the same. The only difference was his silence, this time he didn't whisper about the future and the wonders he hoped to witness. His soft breath against her neck was the only sound as she felt him relax into her and soon she slept too. She would deal with what this meant in the morning, for now, she wanted her Niko.


	8. Chapter 8

In Their Meadow All Starry With Flowers

Chapter 8

Nikola squeezed his eyes shut against the light, it was searing white and seemed to stir old memories of his body gleaming under an ancient blinding sun. He was cold. The light wasn't the sun. There was no swelter or hot wet winds here. Just the endless sea spray whisking the ends of his hair round like the maelstrom below his island. His body felt different as rough hands grabbed and lifted him, strapped him down. He felt lighter, softer, so much thinner and he trembled with the numbing cold that rolled like mist in his brain. Fearr gripped him, he was being hoisted towards the light, immobile, mind slower and somehow not his. Something was very wrong.

His eyelids flickered as he was manhandled, he was laid flat, his limbs were forced through loops that were then pulled tight and cut into his flesh. His eyes snapped open in panic as he felt the cold metal on his lips, cruel thumbs on the hinge of his jaw squeezing his mouth open and the flat steel plate slid between his teeth to muffle his tongue. He screamed as his mouth opened, a thin, wail of anguish that was spiked on the edges, making the men leaning over him wince. His voice was not his. His voice was smooth and cultured and male, not the piteous feminine sound whining round the gag. His eyes rolled as he tried to force his mind to focus on anything other than the sheer animal terror rising in his chest. He wanted to explode, to scream and scream and rage until there was nothing but corpses and madmen, but all he could manage was a plaintive mewling. In the terror he could feel a black roiling anger, it was happening again. What was happening? All he could feel was fear, and anger...and in the terrible cold darkness of his mind the small shameful spark of lust.

The lights were too bright above him and he moaned every time they flashed over his eyelids. He was being wheeled through corridors that went on forever in blinding streaks of light. There seemed to be a great deal of activity around him,

"How long has it had?" One voice asked, male but light,

"One hundred and sixteen minutes, it should start regaining full consciousness in three to four minutes."

One of the people around him pulled back one of his eyelids, and he squealed at the pain of the light passing overhead.

"It's already starting to respond, we better hurry, I don't want it coming round again before we can hand it off."

The lights flashed faster as their pace quickened. He seemed to be regaining control of small parts of himself, his eyes began to adjust to the lights, he could move his fingers, feel his sweat turning cold against the metal he was lying on. His mind was starting to clear, it still felt like he was trying to think through a thick fog, but he was beginning to feel tendrils of awareness unfurling in the dark. An awareness that was not his. There was another mind in his head, no, not his head, he was the intruder here. He could feel her emerging consciousness reaching out to his, their minds touching in the dark, feeling one another out. With each touch he could feel her strength, fear and agony, he tried to reassure her as he felt her confusion and panic at finding him there.

"I't me." He tried to tell her, "It's me, Nikola, we dream together" He could feel his, no, her body tense in shock at the sound of his voice in her head. Her mind stroked his again, it felt as if she was circling him, trying to work out who he was without coming too close, her mind brushing him with gentle, slow strokes.

"Nikola, the boy in the rain." She finally remembered, and she felt lighter, brighter than before. As if some of the heaviness in her mind was lessened by his closeness. He could sense relief, and a flutter of hope and a kinship that seemed to come from deep within him. He could feel her consciousness drawing closer, shyly, but then with more certainty,

"It is you." Her voice was stronger this time,

"You're here with me, why? Are you dreaming? You feel different here." He could feel her touching him, her mind warm and gentle,

"You hum with power." She whispered, her mind continued it's wandering "You crackle like lightning, and smell like old lovers. Yes, you are, you're one of the old ones, we have loved one another before this time, our souls are entwined Nikola."

"I don't understand." He was confused and feeling slightly drunk from her touch,

"You're a vampire." She practically purred the word.

"A long time ago, I think I was very young then, and beautiful, and my sisters and I we were loved and prized over all others by your race. I don't remember how it felt though, but now you're here, you can show me. You can remember for me, tell me, tell me."

"No, you're mistaken" His words came out in a rush, who did she think he was? Just what did she think he could do when he was trapped here?

"You need to tell me what's happening to you, why am I here in your head? Are we dreaming again? You have to stop, people think I'm going mad, you have to tell me how to help you or stop this...this... whatever it is we're doing. I want to help you, I really do, but I can't if my friends lock me up as a lunatic. Besides, I'm not an ancient, I'm only half vampire, I wasn't even born until five hundred years after the last true vampires died, I can't remember what I've never lived"

"But your soul remembers" She whispered, there were strange echoes and harmonics within her words that made him feel dizzy. Her mind rubbed against his like a cat greeting it's owner and in that touch she seemed to stir memories from another time.

There were richly embroidered hangings, golden canopies and silk cushions. He was beautiful and terrible and he watched the long, slender bodies of the Sirens swaying as they danced in the hot sun. They blazed with power, their voices rising, weaving through one another until the air shimmered and the ground thrummed under his feet. It was a game, a game he'd devised, their song twisted and reformed over and over until the obelisk they were dancing round split open and live jewel coloured birds burst out, fluttering round the delighted women as they chirruped and sang. He was pleased, and laughed, the sound causing the women to run to him, their dresses as bright as the birds, they chattered and sang their thanks, pressing their foreheads to his feet and hands. There was no greater pleasure than their laughter, and their unswerving devotion to him. He knew joy in his heart and nothing could end it.

Another memory. He stood in the heat shimmer as the sun set over sand dunes. His braided hair whipped in the wind and the last of the sun's rays glinted red on the armour of the ranged battalions before him. He raised his spear and with one great roar the advance began. One group led, wild haired women, their armour enamelled black, but carrying neither weapons nor shields they fearlessly strode towards the enemy. A hail of arrows from the foe's archers threatened the front lines, but as one the Siren lifted their hands and with a single shriek shattered the barbs into a harmless rain of powder. He watched from his dune top as the enemy crumbled, their men fled in raving madness, their best warriors cutting out their own tongues or offering their throats to his army. Later, the leader of his Siren came to him, her face and body still wet with blood, she knelt at his feet and offered him the heart of his enemy's general, he looked down at her, bloody and wolfish, and felt his desire stirring. He pulled her up to his mouth, his tongue snaking along the pulse in her throat, licking the blood smeared there away in one long greedy slick. The full length of their bodies touching, she burned against him, he shuddered and scraped his fangs over her neck wanting to hear her breath catch. She reached up, her fingers red with blood from the general's heart and traced a crimson trail down her throat to her breasts, her teasing smile dared him to bite.


	9. Chapter 9

In Their Meadow All Starry With Flowers

Chapter 9

Her sudden spike of fear brought him back to the present, they had been wheeled into some kind of medical facility. He squinted against the spotlights,unable to move, the view was limited but he could see a metal examination table and rather worryingly, a large selection of syringes laid out beside it. A face loomed into his field of vision, a long shiny face that smiled brightly down at him.

"How's it doing?" He asked, turning to another man holding a clipboard.

"Fine, Doctor Vinz, it's regaining bodily control a little quicker than I'd like but nothing to worry about."

"Funny, she should be conscious, but motor control should be way down for at least another twenty minutes..."

The doctor looked sharply over to the men that had wheeled her in,

"You lot haven't been "Overstimulating" my pet again have you?" He made finger quotes in mid air and looked at them disdainfully when a couple flushed and shuffled guiltily.

"Bloody monsters, the lot of you, it's you that should be locked up, not her! Next time I hear of any of you tormenting my animals again I will take your own tazers and fry your balls. Do you hear me? Now get out of my sight."

Vinz's face loomed into view again.

"Poor thing," He sighed, brushing a few hairs off her face,

"Now, lets make you pretty for your special guests shall we? You've got three today, and aren't you lucky? One of them is Mr Beria, he's so eager to see how you're getting on" She was wheeled to the examination table and hoisted onto it by a couple of assistants , who pulled hoses out of their brackets at either end of the table and began to gently soap and rinse her, working quickly and thoroughly until she was completely clean.

Nikola could feel everything as if it were happening to him. It was bizarre to have such soft sensitive skin, his limbs felt so delicate as each was lifted and washed, he shuddered involuntarily at the strange new feeling of a rough sponge dragging over her breasts. He couldn't help but notice that as his mind was straining to take in everything that was happening, she had shrunk away, turning in on herself protectively. He heard her voice as if from afar,

"Nikola, wake up, wake up and leave me while I still have the strength to let you go. Please Nikola, please wake."

"What? How? How can I leave you? What's happening?" His thoughts babbled as her rising fear raced through him, he could feel her sobbing as the first injection pricked her arm and he felt warmth rushing through her veins.

"It's coming, it's coming" her hysterical thoughts swam round him as he struggled to focus himself, there was a second prick, and a third, he could feel the darkness rolling back in, her voice was small now and thick with what felt like shame, it came from further and further away,

"Run, run, it's coming, run..." Then silence. The darkness swelled round him, her body was trembling, she was burning, her blood was boiling, sweat gleamed on her white skin. Then he felt it, a creeping tension, that plucked at the cords of her muscles, swam in her blood and coiled around her core. It built, bringing a humming pressure in her head, Nikola felt it and feared it. It was primal and savage, and he could feel her mind rising again, sharper, brutal and lusting.

She was moaning through the gag and writing on the table, her back arching and fingers grasping at nothing. Inside her Nikola knew her seething fear, anger and surging burning need for flesh and he was terrified. It was like every dark thing inside him had been unleashed in her. His own need to feel hot yeilding bodies beneath his own, to tear and rend, bite and fuck was surging through her.

Vinz, patted her gently on the leg as if to calm a frightened horse,

"Well someone's taking the hit quickly today, I just hope you don't burn through this dose too fast like last time, you really are too pretty to beat."

She growled at his touch, as it sent vibrations through her body, she could smell him and she drooled round the gag desperate to make him scream for her. Vinz chuckled, and started clicking off the foot breaks on the wheeled table,

"Don't worry my little pet, they're nearly ready for you, not long now"

He calmly continued making preparations to move her, he checked off clipboards, signed papers and even preened in a small mirror briefly, completely ignoring the moaning writhing woman strapped to his examination table. He finally looked up from his notes when an assistant knocked at the door,

"Everything's set, Doctor." He said, holding out a pair of ear protectors like the ones he had dangling around his neck. They looked like large orange headphones that covered the whole ear, they digitalized and reproduced any sound around them into a harmless computerised sound and were absolutely essential for any person working with the Siren. Vinz thanked him and put them over his own ears, motioning for the assistant to do the same.

"Everything's ready, shall we take it through?" The assistant's voice was flat and toneless through the protectors, but the frustrated whines coming from the table were almost completely blocked out. The doctor pocketed a couple more syringes and they wheeled her through a swing door into a darkened room, where two heavy set men were waiting. They were quickly injected, and the men in white coats exited just as quickly as they'd arrived. Clumsy fingers undid her restraints, taking their time to run their coarse hands over her body, finally her gag was removed and she rose with her song. She baited them, taunting them with her sensuality, drove away all shreds of their learnt civility and lid bare the human animal. It came as easily as breathing to her, and she wanted the animals.

It wasn't the first punch that woke Nikola and jolted him out of her frantic mind, it wasn't the second or the third. It wasn't the hard hands pinching and twisting her delicate flesh, it wasn't the teeth sunk into her shoulder or the disorientation of the ringing slaps to the face. It wasn't even the panic of choking as they filled her mouth or the tearing pain of the first hard shaft thrust into her. It was the group of laughing men, smoking and drinking champagne, eagerly watching the show through a viewing window.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N - It's rated M for a reason people.

In Their Meadow All Starry With Flowers

Chapter 10

Helen sighed as Nikola moved in his sleep, his arms briefly tightening around her in their comfortable tangle. At some point in the night they'd shifted, thrown off the sheets in the warm stuffy air of his room, Nikola spread-eagled flat on his back, and she lay sprawled across him, one leg thrown over his waist, her forehead lightly resting against his cheek. He twitched again, this time letting out a low groan, which brought her fuzzily back to wakefulness. At first she was disorientated, this was not her room, and the sensation finding herself wrapped around Nikola Tesla, while not unwelcome or unfamiliar, was vaguely disturbing considering how they were usually only an insult away from all out war at the best of times. He moaned again, his whole body tense, the sound seemed to reverberate right through him. Helen pulled him closer to her making soothing sounds, wondering again at how easily they slipped into their old ways. She pressed her cool face to his fevered one, smiling a little as she felt his stubble rasp under her cheek. It had always been a bone of contention with Nikola, that he had become a never changing, ageless vampire but he still had to shave. He was also forever irked by the fact that the change had immortalised the touch of premature greyness in the hair at his temples. She brushed it out of his face now, running her hand lightly over his scalp making his usual shock even more spiky. Niko had always been so funny about his hair, his scalp was so sensitive she used to tease him for hours combing her fingers through his hair as he lay, practically purring, his head in her lap. She wasn't sure how long she held him but no matter what she did she couldn't soothe him. He cried out again, louder this time, the noise had strange harmonics floating round the edges that, to Helen's sleep and nostalgia fogged brain, seemed to sink through her, and made a hot, tense want boil in the pit of her stomach. Instinctively she held him still tighter, her leg pulling his hips against hers, she pressed the whole length of her body to his side and to her surprise butterflies fluttered in her chest at the feel of his long body in her arms again. She studied his face, his slightly open lips were mesmerising, every small noise coming form them wound her tighter, made her breath just a little shorter. She felt herself slipping as his brow crinkled slightly and his tongue, very pink against his white teeth, moved to lick his lips like he was tasting the air for her. Her hand resting over his heart slid down over his taut belly until her fingers found the hem of his shirt, she slid it slowly up, his skin smooth and unusually warm under her. The sensation of running her fingertips the wrong way through the fine dark trail below his navel sent another jolt of that velvet dark want through her, she pushed his shirt right up, her fear of waking him lessening as another low groan thrummed through their bodies.

Her mind whirled as the deep harmonics made her shiver and brought forth all the almost and might have moments she and Nikola shared, their endless war of words, their carefully calculated mannerisms each designed to tease and tantalise the other. She remembered how she would wear her long curls half tumbling down her back, knowing the way they bounced and swayed with her movement made his jaw clench. She remembered how the way he continually steepled and entwined his long fingers made her blush as she visualised how slowly and sensually they unbuttoned her boots. How distracting the quirk of his lips as he spoke revealing his pointed teeth, how much more distracting the hot, open mouthed, possessive kisses to the inside of her her wrist when he knew John was watching. She felt the flush rising over her body, prickling over the back of her neck and chest, as she remembered the thrill of watching the two men squaring up to one another. Nikola all noise and swagger, spitting insults and derision against Johns air of silent, barely contained violence. Her breath came hard as she dredged up half forgotten fantasies from the mind of her young self, dark, non-feminist, sordid fantasies that made her blood rush and teeth grind. Fantasies where she could have had them both, where she panted and writhed in their crushing grip, and let them take and take. Where she begged and whined under their hands and lost herself to them becoming deliciously and scandalously theirs. They were so real it was as if she could feel the long fingers in her hair, breath on her thigh. Why was it suddenly so hard to focus? her vision fogged , black creeping in from the edges like she was going to faint until all she could see was his face, all she could feel was the hard lines of his body against hers, she fought not to moan aloud as she tightened her leg round his waist to grind herself agonisingly against his hip .She licked her lips, her hand trailing slowly up Nikola's torso, the angular planes of his body so new and yet familiar. She couldn't help herself, he was so close and so warm and he smelled good in the way only Nikola smelled, a soft, citrus masculine scent combined with the deep metallic cordite tang of raw electricity. She bent her head closer to the pale skin of his chest and inhaled his smell, the wanting feeling inside her was a molten pool in her core, she really couldn't help herself, even though the one tiny bit of rational thought in her brain was ringing alarm bells, he felt so good, he smelled better, it had been so long since she'd wanted anyone on such an animal level, it had been so long since she'd allowed her iron self control to slip. She bent her head to his chest, slowly drew her tongue over his nipple, his sharp waking intake of breath, somehow multi layered and shuddering with vibration, was enough to tip her over the edge, she moaned, and bit down. Hard.

Nikola bellowed as her teeth dug into him, he seized her wrists and in one motion rolled her over so he was on top of her, his weight pinning her to the bed. He looked down at her, his eyes huge and black and predatory.

"Helen..."

He growled out, his voice was spiked with the same dark need that burned through her and made her arch underneath him, the thin cotton of his pyjamas letting her feel his arousal against her.

"Helen...that, was unacceptable behaviour."

It was too much and she pulled him down to kiss her, unashamedly grinding against his thigh, she wanted him closer. Their kiss was hard and frantic, his sharp teeth catching on her lower lip drawing blood. He reared back panting, her blood on his lips,

"Nikola..."

She whined, reaching for him as he knelt between her legs, gazing at her like he couldn't quite make out if she was real. She reached out and hooking her fingers into the waistband of his trousers pulled him back down to her, her insistent tongue was bloody and his head swam as her taste filled his mouth.

"Helen, I...I can't."

He breathed as they broke apart for her to tug his shirt over his head the last few shreds of his self control trying to rein in the raw primal desire surging through him, she looked at him the familiar mischievous glint in her eye, there was blood smeared round her mouth and he let out a longing groan as she licked her lips torturously.

"Are you sure Niko? Don't you want this?"

She ran her hands lightly over his chest down to linger over the sensitive spot over his lean hips where she dug in her nails and scratched all the way down to where his erection was straining against his torusers.

"Because I think you're lying to me..." She brushed her fingers over his hardness and grinned up at him, daring him to leave her. She started to unbutton her own shirt taking her time wanting to draw out the moment as he watched, eyes shining like oil, until one of his hands captured both hers and held them away from her half open top. The fingers of his other hand gently trailed their tips over the exposed swell of her breasts, suddenly his claws flashed out and tore her shirt from collar to hem, he grinned devilishly at her little squeak of excitement.

"You should know better than to tease me,"

His voice thick with the darkness rising within him. He lowered his head nuzzled down into her cleavage until with a quick snap of his teeth pulled her bra clean off her body, her breasts were soft and pale in the half light, her nipples peaking in the air.

"Now, lets see how you like it"

She squealed and struggled as his lips began their slow assault on her, he placed burning wet kisses over her collarbone down into her cleavage stopping to flick his tongue over her nipple. She whimpered his name as his teeth scraped lightly over her, scoring thin red lines dotted with crimson globes over her skin, the sensation was bright and intoxicating. He never broke eye contact once as he lapped cat like at the cuts, enjoying how she shivered. He continued to tease her, alternating his soft lips with his wicked teeth until she was half delirious with pain and pleasure, while his claws made short work of her jeans. He reached down and traced her slit with his fingers through her panties, smirking as she lifted her hips trying to push against him, the scent of her arousal only heightening the black hunger in his chest. Helen snarled in his grip as he denied her the tiny friction of his finger against her hot wetness,

"Niko, Niko I want you," She panted, her voice strained,

"I want you inside me, I want you to feel me, I've wanted..."

He broke her off with a long kiss, pushing the delicate material of her underwear aside he teased her folds again with long, barely there, strokes as he ground his hardness against her hip sending stars spiralling before his eyes.

"Stop it Niko!" She growled into his mouth "Fuck me. I need you, you animal..."

Animal...

"It's just a fucking ANIMAL!"

The shout didn't come from either of them but caused something to flicker in his vision, indistinct at first but so sudden he almost stopped breathing.

"What? Don't stop Niko, I need you!" Helen slapped at the suddenly frozen Tesla, her frustration making her think he was still teasing her.

Another flicker, this time a bloodied, screaming face, Nikola flinched as he felt the impact of an invisible blow to the side of his head, the pain was intense but worse was the way he felt desire throb through him.

The flicker in his vision became a flash, blood dripping into greenish yellow eyes, flat and animal but clearly terrified.

He shook and cried out, flinching as if invisible fists and boots were crashing into him until he finally snapped out of his trance and threw himself from Helen. He lurched away from the bed, his face was a mask of horror as he reeled into his chest of drawers, nearly smashing it into splinters.

"Nikola!" She gasped, trying to get up from the bed but her legs were still jelly from the intense sensations she'd felt as he'd marked her.

"What is it? What's the matter?"

Nikola stared at her like he wasn't sure if she was really there, his eyes were huge and unfocussed and he swayed like a drunk man, his arms wrapped round his chest protectively.

"Oh God..." He managed in a hoarse whisper.

"Oh God, Helen... They're doing, the things they're doing. I could feel it, everything, I could feel everything."

He staggered his face grey, he turned and dashed for his small en suite, ricocheting off the door frame on his way and retched into the toilet bowl.

Frightened by the horror and revulsion on his face Helen hurried after him, the strange dark want had started to fade as soon as he stopped touching her and her rational brain was now fighting down fear, confusion and irrational hurt. He had wanted her and now he didn't, had she done something? Was she not good enough? What if he really was falling apart?

"Like an nightmare," She heard him shudder between gasps,

"Like the nightmares, but I was awake. The things they're doing to her! She can't stop them, and they watch, like it's a game, and they make her like it...She craves and fears it. Some drug, they give her something and then I couldn't control, I could have...Oh God I could have hurt you."

He heaved again, as Helen stood by him feeling useless and worse still, scared. She was always ready for action, she'd had to deal with and solve more dangerous problems than nightmares before now, but there was a look in his eyes that scared her more than monsters, when she'd looked back into his terror stricken gaze, she wasn't sure that it was Nikola Tesla staring back. She couldn't be sure, but in the half light she had thought he'd looked different. His features were all there, the same as before but his face was different, the thin line of his mouth had looked softer, his eyes wider and not their usual slate grey, she could have sworn they'd had a feral yellowish tinge. His voice, just for a few seconds had been different too, it sounded so stupid to admit but she was sure she'd felt his gasping words brush against her, soft and warm as his fingers just had been.

Nikola was crouched by the toilet still dry heaving and gagging his breath ragged as he sobbed with his knuckles pressed hard against his eyes. She reached down to take his hand only for him to recoil from her, he cringed back against the wall,

"Don't! Oh God, don't touch me!"

He stammered out between long wracking sobs. His distress was so painful to see that Helen found tears welling in her eyes, all she wanted was to gather him to her, and try to chase away what was making him hurt so much. For the first time in over a century she let herself cry for Nikola Tesla. On her knees she edged slowly closer, her hands reaching for him,

"Please, Niko, don't. Don't cry, please, please."

She edged closer and closer while he continued to gasp and sob, a stick like bundle huddled on his bathroom floor.

"Niko, dearest, please don't, please. Tell me what's wrong, I'm here darling, I'm here..."

She continued with her soft pleading, his sobs were slowly subsiding, but still he lay on the hard tiles hugging himself tighter until his forehead was pressed against his knees, not knowing what else to do, Helen lay down on her side facing him, one hand outstretched towards his. The tears on her face were now cold but she didn't brush them away, feeling them cool and dry sticky on her face proved they were real. She knew she would cry a lot more soon, because she now knew what she had to do. Nikola was not well, he needed treatment, and if he would not take it, it was up to her. She was his oldest, possibly only friend, they'd worked together, saved the world together, fought one another and secretly wished things could have been different together. A few hours ago he'd brushed her hand with his fingertips, only a small gesture, but he'd done it as her Niko and she'd felt her world stop spinning for that brief instant. She would not lose him again, not after everything that had happened. She had to save him from his own mind.

They lay together on the floor, almost but not quite touching for the best part of an hour waiting for Nikola's body to unclench and for the ragged hysteria to leave him. When he could stand, Helen wiped his face and chest with a washcloth, speaking comfortingly all the time and willing away the tears that threatened to fall at his every flinch, he was trembling and so silent that he reminded her of the traumatized survivors of some terrible disaster. She took his hand and led him childlike back to bed, tossing aside the bloodied sheets of their earlier passion. They lay quietly for a while, she cradled him to her, wrapping him up in a protective embrace until she heard his quiet voice in the dark.

"I'm sorry."

"Why?" She whispered, her face in his hair as he lay against her.

"It wasn't me. It wasn't me doing that to you."

"What do you mean?"

"It wasn't me, I couldn't stop myself, it was like I was in her head and they gave us...something, something evil. Something that wakes the animal in us."

"Niko, shh," Helen tried to soothe him, her hand smoothing his hair back from his forehead also smoothed away her silent tears falling into the soft strands. She was losing him.

"Try to sleep, you're not making any sense."

"Helen," His voice was faint and tired,

"Helen, please believe me, it wasn't me. It wasn't. I would never, could never...be with you like that."

"Like what?"

"Savage."


End file.
